About the Author

Edward Marson was born and brought up in South Wales. A full-time
writer for over thirty years, he has worked in radio, film,
television and the theatre and is a former chairman of the Crime
Writers' Association. Prolific and highly successful, he is equally
at home writing children's books or literary criticism, plays or
biographies.

Reviews

The prolific Marston (the Domesday Books series, etc.) starts yet
another historical mystery series with this middling police
procedural that starts well but runs out of steam. Robert Colbeck,
a former attorney now serving as an inspector in the fledging
Scotland Yard of 1851, investigates a daring daylight train robbery
that results in the derailment of the train and the theft of gold
and mail. Later, those initially suspected of having provided the
inside information that enabled the scheme's startling and speedy
success turn up dead, while someone begins to blackmail members of
the upper-class with the stolen letters. The spirited byplay among
Colbeck, his rule-bound superintendent and his sergeant recalls
Peter Lovesey's superlative Sergeant Cribb novels. But while
Colbeck is a bright, unconventional and imaginative sleuth,
Marston's choice to unmask the crimes' prime movers halfway through
and to reduce an engaging female character, the daughter of the
train's driver, into a stereotypical damsel in distress ultimately
disappoints. One hopes Colbeck's next exploit will offer a more
suspenseful, sophisticated plot. Agent, Jane Conway-Gordon. (May 1)
FYI: Marston is the pseudonym of Keith Miles, who is also the
author of Honolulu Play-Off (Forecasts, Feb. 23) and other titles
in his Alan Saxon golf mystery series. Copyright 2004 Reed Business
Information.

'A grand romp very much in the tradition of Holmes and Watson and
Cribb and Thackeray - packed with characters Dickens would have
been proud of. Wonderful, well written' Time Out

Set in 1850s England, Marston's excellent new historical series
features a Scotland Yard detective with attitude. Inspector Robert
Colbeck tends to look down on local cops and tells them so. When
well-organized thieves derail and rob a train of gold and mail,
Colbeck is in his element. Only insiders would know schedules and
amounts, and the safe required two separate keys, so Colbeck
targets post office, bank, and mint employees. As with his
Elizabethan and medieval mysteries (e.g., The Vagabond Clown; The
Bawdy Basket), Marston fuses realistic time, place, and events with
believable protagonists. Strongly recommended. Copyright 2004 Reed
Business Information.

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